To anchor yourself in the past as a point of refuge or security is to drag anchor in this whole process that is life. You’ll never really get out into the ocean to see what is going on. To project yourself into the future means you will never have fulfillment in the present. If God is delivering everything now (and believe me, that is so), why are you concerned with the past or future?
– John-Roger with Paul Kaye
(From: What’s It Like Being You?, p. 146)
If we drop our concern with appearances and take each moment as it comes, instead of rehashing the past and worrying about the future, we, too, can greet life in the same innocent and trusting way. This approach can be challenging for people in a society like ours, which overemphasizes the intellect. Intellectuals often have difficulty letting go of their ideas about how life should be. Their minds constantly take them out of the moment and into efforts to analyze and manipulate the world around them.
When we are in harmony with spiritual laws, we can let go of our opinions and approach life with what Zen master Shunryu Suzuki called “beginner’s mind”: “In the beginner’s mind there
are many possibilities,” he said, “but in the expert’s there are few.” We can live in the state of true play. What we generally call “play” are games of strategy. This form of play, whether in
relationships or on the football field, is all about competition and one-upping others. But the true self’s only game is the game of loving, which involves cooperation and caring. When we look at
life from a true-self perspective, we continually discover new things about ourselves and others.
While in our false-self state of awareness, we tend to focus on material things. We fantasize that if we had the right job, a great relationship, and enough money, life would be perfect. Ironically,
the fulfillment of that “perfect-life” fantasy in reality has nothing to do with the outer world. Fulfillment is found in the contentment and joy we experience when we are living in the true self, irrespective of external conditions.
